The Pre-Roman Iron Age (5th/4th century BC - 1st century BC) designates the earliest part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia, northern Germany, and the Netherlands north of the Rhine River. It is named as the latest period in Christian Jürgensen Thomsen's three-age chronological system (the two preceding periods being the Stone Age and the Bronze Age). The aforementioned associated geographical regions feature many extensive archaeological excavation sites, which in turn have yielded a wealth of artifacts, including the oldest iron items yet unearthed. Objects discovered at the sites suggest that the Pre-Roman Iron Age evolved out of the Nordic Bronze Age. Archaeologists first made the decision to divide the Iron Age into distinct pre-Roman and Roman periods after E. Vedel unearthed a number of Iron Age artifacts on the island of Bornholm which did not exhibit the same heavy Roman influence seen in most other artifacts from that period, indicating that parts of northern Europe had not yet come into contact with the Romans at the beginning of the Iron Age.

The culture covered by this term was most likely Proto-Germanic, and south of it was the Celtic La Tène culture, whose advanced iron-working technology exerted a considerable influence, when, around 600 BC northern people began to extract bog iron from the ore in peat bogs, a technology which they had acquired from their Central European neighbors. In the beginning, iron was valuable and was used for decoration. The oldest objects were needles, but edged tools, swords and sickles, are found as well. Bronze continued to be used during the whole period, but was mostly used for decoration.

The traditions were a continuation from the Nordic Bronze Age, but there were strong influences from the Hallstatt culture in Central Europe. Funerary practices continued the Bronze Age tradition of burning the corpses and placing the remains in urns, a characteristic of the Urnfield culture. During the previous centuries, influences from the Central European La Tène culture spread to Scandinavia from North-Western Germany and there are finds from this period from all the provinces of southern Scandinavia. Archaeologists have found swords, shieldbosses, spearheads, scissors, sickles, pincers, knives, needles, buckles, kettles, etc. from this time. Bronze continued to be used for torques and kettles, the style of which were a continuity from the Bronze Age. Some of the most prominent finds are the Gundestrup silver cauldron and the Dejbjerg wagons from Jutland, two four-wheeled wagons of wood with bronze parts.

The period began with a deteriorating climate, which caused a dramatic change in the flora and fauna. In Scandinavia, this period is often called the Findless Age due to the lack of finds from this period. While the finds from Scandinavia are consistent with a loss of population, the southern part of the culture, the Jastorf culture, was in expansion southwards. It consequently appears that the climate change played an important role in the southward expansion of the Proto-Germanic tribes into continental Europe.

This warlike demic diffusion southwards is sometimes questioned by proponents of the peaceful cultural diffusion theory according to which all languages and archaeological cultures moved peacefully by the transmission of objects and ideas between geographically static populations (compare historian's fallacy and presentism, which are logical fallacies caused by projecting the modern scholar's mindset onto people living in different times and cultures). However, the Germanic tribes would not be known to history for being very peaceful, nor for being geographically static. This time was also the age of the Teutons and the Cimbri, whose migrations were little like cultural diffusion, and who were an example of what would follow in the later Roman Iron Age and Age of Migrations.

Strong evidence contrary to the above paragraph comes from the fact that "Germanic tribes" were apparently quite content to remain in comparatively improverished conditions for at least a thousand years before their first appearance in southern European consciousness. Given that rich territories to the south were within a few weeks march -- at most -- of the Jastorf locale, this points to the conclusion that these northern peoples were hardly aggressive for the greater part of pre-history. What may have set off aggressive behavior on the part of these more northern Germanic speakers was the example set by Gauls, Greeks and Romans. The organization and communication needed to mount a serious attack was probably imported from the south. As far as the expansion of Jastorf, the first impression would that it would have been an expansion into the relatively unpopulated no-man's land of central Europe.

Migrations from 750BC to 1AD
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Jastorf Culture

The Jastorf culture is an Iron Age material culture in northern Europe, dated from about 600 BC to 1. It is named after a site near the village of Jastorf, Lower Saxony ( 53°3′N, 10°36′E). Its area was first delimited by the Weser in the West, the Aller in the South, and the Danish Islands in the North, but later it expanded southwards towards the LowerRhine and the Harz.

It evolved out of the Nordic Bronze Age, through influence from the Halstatt culture further south. It was part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the south Scandinavian cultures in the north were very similar to this culture.

The cultures of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and their predecessor the Nordic Bronze Age are sometimes hypothesized to be the origin of the Germanic languages. The geographical distribution "pur sang" of the Jastorf culture seems at least to have corresponded to Elbe Germanic, spoken by "Suebian" people like the Lombards and Alamani that are assumed to have originated there, or West Germanic languages to those who assume a wider distribution beyond the Harz, the Rhine Delta and Rhineland. Its technology for gaining iron ore from local sources may have served as a driver for language spread.

It appears from historic sources that the Jastorf culture was not yet thoroughly Proto-Germanic. Several tribes from this culture, such as the Ambrones and even the more northerly Cimbri were partly or largely still Celtic.

Greek Records

The concept of "Germanic" as a distinct ethnic identity was hinted at by the early Greek geographer Strabo, who distinguished a barbarian group in northern Europe similar to, but not part of, the Celts. Posidonius, to our knowledge, is the first to have used the name, around 80 BC, in his lost 30th book. Our knowledge of this is based on the 4th book of Athenaeus, who in ca. AD 190 quotes Posidonius as saying that "The Germani at noon serve roast meat with milk, and drink their wine undiluted".

By the 1st century A.D., the writings of Caesar, Tacitus and other Roman era writers indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into tribal groupings centred on:

the rivers Oder and Vistula (Poland) (East Germanic tribes),
the lower Rhine river (Istvaeones),
the river Elbe (Irminones),
Jutland and the Danish islands (Ingvaeones).

The Sons of Mannus Istvaeones, Irminones, and Ingvaeones are collectively called West Germanic tribes. In addition, those Germanic people who remained in Scandinavia are referred to as North Germanic. These groups all developed separate dialects, the basis for the differences among Germanic languages down to the present day.

The division of peoples into West Germanic, East Germanic, and North Germanic is a modern linguistic classification. Many Greek scholars only classified Celts and Scyths in the Northwest and Northeast of the Mediterranean and this classification was widely maintained in Greek literature until Late Antiquity. Latin-Greek ethnographers (Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, and Strabo) mentioned in the first two centuries AD the names of peoples they classified as Germanic along the Elbe, the Rhine, and the Danube, the Vistula and on the Baltic Sea. Tacitus mentioned 40, Ptolemy 69 peoples. Classical ethnography applied the name Suebi to many tribes in the first century. It appeared that this native name had all but replaced the foreign name Germanic. After the Marcomannic wars the Gothic name steadily gained importance. Some of the ethnic names mentioned by the ethnographers of the first two centuries AD on the shores of the Oder and the Vistula (Gutones, Vandali) reappear from the 3rd century on in the area of the lower Danube and north of the Carpathian Mountains. For the end of the 5th century the Gothic name can be used - according to the historical sources - for such different peoples like the Goths in Gaul, Iberia and Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Gepids along the Tisza and the Danube, the Rugians, Sciri and Burgundians, even the Iranian Alans. These peoples were classified as Scyths and often deducted from the ancient Getae (most important: Cassiodor/Jordanes, Getica approx. 550 AD).

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